


Heroics

by weekend_conspiracy_theorist



Series: In the Bowels of the Ship [5]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 22:44:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16841932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weekend_conspiracy_theorist/pseuds/weekend_conspiracy_theorist
Summary: It can't ALWAYS be the bridge team who saves the day.





	Heroics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_warm_beige_color](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_warm_beige_color/gifts).



> I wrote this and posted it on tumblr ages ago, but apparently it never made its way over here? It's cool, since I think nobody cares about my OCs except me and Watson, my dear friend to whom this is gifted, but still!

“I told you this was a bad idea,” Barron hisses, his hands twitching nervously as he peers over Givens’s shoulder. “There’s a _reason_ they didn’t think we were worth locking up; we have exceedingly minimal combat training and–”

Lieutenant Givens isn’t listening. They’re too _busy_ to listen, fingers delicately picking through the circuits of their beloved ship, but Min Sung- the botanist- can’t tune Barron out for the life of her. Each word adds to the tension already thrumming through her slim frame, and finally–

She can’t take it any more.

“Shut the _fuck_ up, ensign,” she snarls, and Barron snaps away from G with wide, surprised eyes. Min presses into his space, her index finger jabbing painfully into his chest and rising up onto her tiptoes with the force of her ire. She knows she has to keep her voice is pitched low, but that only serves to exacerbate the fury coursing through her. “You are not being helpful, do you hear me? The command, medical, and security departments in their entireties have been thrown in the brig; it doesn’t fucking matter that we’re _just_ scientists or _just_ engineers–we are this ship’s _only goddamn hope_ _.”_

Barron tries to back away but Min follows him relentlessly, spitting out, “If you can’t handle that, then go take up a lookout. At least your big mouth will be good for giving us a warning.”

“Y-yes, ma’am,” he stutters, frozen in place with his back against the wall of the ship.

Min bares her teeth. “What are you waiting for?” she demands, and he flees without a backwards glance.

She stands taught for a moment, watching him, and then runs a trembling hand over her face. Letting her eyes fall closed, Min tries to pull herself back together; her temper runs hot, but also short. All she can think about is that Barron- green and untried as he is- isn’t wrong. They _aren’t_ trained for this.

Min crouches down next to Givens and clasps her hands between her knees, wishing they’d realized what was happening before it was too late–

Hikaru, with his steady hands and smiling eyes, had been in the botany labs with her at the time of the intrusion. Another two minutes, and she could have had him outfitted in one of the spare uniform shirts tucked into Abd’s desk.

At least then there’d be _one_ command officer floating loose.

Givens’s hand on her knee startles her out of her thoughts. “I’m almost done,” they promise, removing it as soon as her dark eyes meet theirs. “Singh can’t be far behind, either, and knowing Randers and Lee- those little overachievers- they’re already on their way back to engineering.”

Min bites her lip, searching their face for–something. She isn’t sure. Givens is an enigma to her, shockingly memorable in every facet of their personality, and yet sometimes she looks at them and has no idea who they are.

“Think it’s going to work, G?” she asks, softly, and Givens’s gaze flicks away, returning to the work in front of them.

They shrug, their voice almost grim as they tell her, “I think it has to.”

Min reaches out to squeeze their knee in return. Her voice tilts sardonically as she comments, “She asks a lot of us, this ship, doesn’t she?”

“Well.” Givens tilts their face to her slightly, though their eyes are still focused on the exposed wiring in the paneling of the ship. “If anyone can live up to those demands, it’s Lieutenant Min Sung, _the_ botanist of the _USS Enterprise_.”

“Min Sung, the _botanist_ ,” she corrects. Givens’s brow furrows further, their mouth opening in question, and Min quickly explains, “I don't get the epithet because I'm the premier botanist aboard the ship; it's because there’s a Min Sung in Security, too. She’s an ensign.”

Givens buries their face in their shoulder to muffle their laughter as they continue to work. “I had no idea,” they admit. “I always thought–”

“Company!” Barron hisses, hustling down the hallway towards them, and Min is on her feet before she can think. She reaches for the phaser at her hip- thrown together from spare parts in Lieutenant Commander Scott’s office- but Givens catches her hand.

“I’m done,” they whisper urgently, tugging her along in their wake. “No heroics; Barron, c’mon, let’s get the fuck out of here. Get back to engineering, enact the plan, bust out the captain–”

“Let _him_ do all the heroics,” Min mutters, and Givens snickers.

“Exactly.”


End file.
